Power outages still persist

Residents of Johannesburg have experienced power outages due to an increase in electricity usage.
According to DA Ward 23 councillor Sarah Wissler City Power is struggling to tackle this issue.

For weeks on end residents have endured long periods in the dark while the ANC administration remains mum on the issue.

She said a substation in Ward 23 was upgraded at a cost of R90-million, which consisted of feeder boards, back-up boards, and a transformer.

“Although Wemmerpan substation was already overloaded, City Power added another suburb to its supply, causing the only transformer that was operational to fail. Just as families were preparing to celebrate Father’s Day on June 21 at 11.50am, this catastrophic failure happened.

“When I arrived at the substation, I was informed that the transformer was making a noise and had tripped, and could not be turned back on. There are two other transformers on site, one that is no longer in use, due to the change in the configuration of the substation.

“The second transformer is new, but was seemingly not ready to be switched on apparently due to issues relating to oil needing to be changed. It was communicated later in the day that this new transformer would be up and running.
“However, when the transformer was switched on, the auxiliary power unit blew up, which caused more delays. The boards in the substation had to be boosted with a generator to save time while they were fixing the transformer.

“Unfortunately, it appeared that the new back-up boards were also no longer working, and Alstrom was called to come and fix them. When the transformer was switched on, and reached 70 per cent capacity of taking on the load, the cables caught fire under the feeder boards,” she said.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the substation that Wissler is talking about is not Wemmerpan, but Mulbarton substation.

“Mulbarton is a hotspot area for cable theft and City Power often experiences outages relating to cable theft in the same area. Some of the Mulbarton substation equipment has reached irreparable damage as a result of constantly suffering cable theft and vandalism. As a result City Power has instituted upgrade project for the substation to deal with capacity shortages. The new project entails installation of a new transformer and feeder boards

“The new project will provide the substation with a surplus capacity of 50 per cent with the three transformers connected and operational. With this surplus capacity City Power will be able to have a flexibility of addressing a problem of prolonged power outages.

“City Power technicians are currently working feverishly to ensure that the two transformers on site are back on line by the end of the next two months. This will make the substation operate at full capacity and be able to address the challenges currently faced with, at the substation. JMPD as well as City Power Risk Control have been alerted of the cable theft incidents and currently these departments are giving the area a priority,” he explained.